Sinners (2025)

Well I'm happy this film is doing so well with the box office, and encouraged by the willingness of people to invest in a story that is not based on some other IP, I don't want to be blind to the flaws of the movie simply because it succeeds so well and in most aspects. Let me start with the positive things and then move on to a couple of the main criticisms that I have of Ryan Cooglers's "Sinners".

The film takes great effort to set a time and place where there is automatically discomfort in the normal settings that the principles find themselves in. A pair of twin black brothers have returned home to their southern roots after having ripped off the mobs in Chicago, well into the Great Depression. The hometown they have returned to, seems calm on the surface, and supposedly the Klan is no longer in operation, but that doesn't mean that it's roots are not still near to the surface. The brothers are attempting to create a social club that caters to the local black population, in particular to their taste in music dancing and other frivolities. Most of the social tension that you get at this point is set up for atmosphere, but later on director/writer Coogler, tries to use it as a plot point to finish off the film and that doesn't quite work.

Anybody who chooses to see this will know that it's a horror film, but it does take a while for the horror elements to develop. There is some early mumbo jumbo about hoodoos brought from the African Homeland, and maybe some of the Caribbean influence as well. All of that is really in aid of developing a secondary character who will provide some exposition later in the film. The ability to recognize vampires doesn't really require all of that, but the film goes through the motions anyway.

The characters in the film do the most to create an atmosphere of dread without any particular source. Michael B, Jordan plays the brothers as a pair of menacing hoodlums who recognize their own depravity, but proceed to live life as if they are the ones who are in the right. Their younger cousin, a musician with dreams of blues mastery, gets mixed up in their plan to create a juke joint that will bring in big dollars and hopefully provide him some fame. The brothers are not interested in him becoming a regular part of the entertainment. They seem to sense that this is a one-off opportunity, it's going to have some negative consequences, and they appear to be trying to avoid trapping him into their own lifestyle. That's about as close as being noble that the two hoodlum Brothers get.

It takes an hour or so for the supernatural element to enter the story, and when it does it's pretty creepy. The rapidly multiplying population of monsters sets the stage for a siege segment that is the main action sequence of the film. Viewers steeped in Vampire lore will understand some of the rules that are being followed, but there are also some things that don't make a lot of sense.

This is where some of the flaws of the film come in. The rules of the world that they have created seem a little ambiguous. Why becoming a vampire turns you into a virtuoso musician, singer, or dancer is not clear. Characters who are turned seem to maintain the personas of their  earlier selves, but never for long and it's not clear what's driving them. Also for a group of characters who are so intelligent as to give a philosophical justification for their actions, they don't seem to have planned for the arrival of dawn. Which for vampires is a pretty short-sighted fault.

The best things about the film are the musical sequences which integrate Blues roots into the plot line. In fact it might even be acceptable to call this film a musical based on the number of scenes where the primary emphasis is on a performance. The scenes of the cousin playing guitar in the car, or performing in the Juke Joint, are excellent. The scenes of the vampires trying to use music is a way of enticing themselves into the Juke Joint are also quite good. Apparently being dead can turn you into quite the Irish dancer, I'll have to keep that in mind for future reference.

Well the film is superior in a number of ways, it does suffer from some of the typical faults of horror movies. The main characters have to make stupid mistakes, someone has to violate the rules, and there will be choices that will make you scratch your head. As usual I try not to give away any spoilers in these posts, but a little of what I'm about to share with you might hint in that direction so proceed in reading with a little caution.

Ryan Coogler cannot find an exit for the movie. He creates a scenario which allows for a satisfying murder of dozens of violent racists, but it has nothing to do with the main plot of the film and it feels tacked on. Even when it's finished, he is still not done. There's a final twist in the film which is designed to give us one more musical interlude, and a take which seems to suggest that giving in to being a vampire isn't necessarily all that bad. The movie should have ended 20 minutes before it did. And regardless of how good the song is or how satisfying an extended sequence of cathartic violence might be, it's got nothing to do with the main story and it feels like padding. Coogler needed his editor to twist his arm a little bit and say "let's stop here".

So the production quality on the film is great, the actors do a terrific job, and the horror story works pretty well even with some of the flaws. It all gets diluted by Coogler's attempt to turn the film into a social commentary. Something that was not needed in order for the film to be worthwhile.

The Accountant 2 (2025)

       

A whole series of disparate events come to a violent conclusion and dozens of bad guys are killed. That's about as much of a plot summary as you need for a movie like this. Action films can work well with a minimal backstory, and sometimes they work well when the plot gets convoluted. This is one of the latter. A sequel to "The Accountant" from almost a decade ago, it finds Ben Affleck as an autistic but functioning human being with extraordinary financial skills. In the first film he was a savant and an extraordinary killer. He's not really an assassin anymore, but his old skills have not left him and he calls on them along with his estranged brother by John Bernthal, to wreak havoc on a trafficking organization.

If you want the audience to really hate the bad guys, you give them the worst kind of criminal activity to be involved in. In this case it is human trafficking, primarily of illegal immigrant women into prostitution. I don't think it's a spoiler to discover that one of the ways the organizations controls the women, is by imprisoning their children. We don't see it on the screen, but there is little doubt that an economic stream involving the children will eventually be in their future as well. It is by a strange series of coincidences, that the head of the FBI Financial crimes unit gets involved in a case that connects the trafficking group with an assassin.

Of course to fight against assassins, it helps to have a couple of Assassins on your side. That's where Affleck and Bernthal come into play. The FBI chief gets a little squeamish working with killers who don't have the same restrictions of legal Authority on them. Still they end up approaching the case from different directions, and ultimately connecting a dangerous assassin, to the crime ring. There is a bit of a twist in this plot development, I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of sense, but they do try to explain it. 

Affleck's character lives in an Airstream trailer, and connects with his financial Empire through a mysterious computer center, filled with children who, like himself, have some Savant abilities. It's been almost 30 years now that filmmakers have been trying to make computer hacking interesting on screen. Programmers, typing in code onto a computer screen, has to be inter-cut with a lot of other activity to make it watchable. The "Accountant 2", does these hacking scenes as well as anybody else has.

Although you would not want to know either Affleck or Bernthal's characters in real life, they make a fascinating pair in the movies. Occasionally questions come up concerning morality, but they're never really answered. There is usually some joke that gets them out of a moral quandary. This was a very effective action piece, with a story that was mysterious enough to keep you intrigued for the 90 minutes that the movie runs. Then we get a shootout, multiple deaths of bad guys, and a couple of closing lines suggesting that we'll be back with this crew again.

Thunderbolts* (2025)

We were scheduled to see this film on Thursday night at the usual preview screenings that now are really just the opening day of the film. However, as members of the Paramount Theater family we were invited to a free screening the night before that, so we felt a little special and we made the Trek down to the State Theater for the film. It was a packed audience and everybody was very enthusiastic, now let me tell you whether or not they should be,

The MCU has been in the doldrums for a few films now. It seems for every "Guardians of the Galaxy" success or "Deadpool" crossover, there is an "Eternals" or "Quantumania", ready to drag the franchise down. The powers that be, have been struggling to get the gravy train back on track, and with this film it looks like they hit the switch for the right set of rails. "Thunderbolts*", soon to be retitled, is a very satisfying team up of secondary characters, some heroic, some villainous, who come together as a group in order to face down the next existential crisis facing the planet. Yet before they deal with that crisis, they have to deal with a different existential crisis, their own sense of self-worth and levels of depression.

Florence Pugh's character, Yelena, is a skilled Black Ops agent, with pretty much the same skill set as her sister, the deceased Black Widow. What satisfying thing can you do with those skills? Unfortunately it seems they've been put to use by the current director of the CIA for some not very pleasant tasks. Yelena is giving in to a malaise that she may not be able to draw herself out of. The fact that she is not the only one who is suffering from an apparent rut in an unsatisfying field is the premise for the film. I enjoy light-hearted super hero movies but I know they can't all be fun times beating the bad guys. To make the stories real, there is usually some human drama involved. This movie creates a parallel structure of the opening half, with its mentally ill protagonists, and in the second half, turns that depression into the literal big bad of the film.

I've said it before, I am not deeply invested in comic books. It's been about 55 years since I spent any time looking at those colorful pages in a magazine format. There have been thousands of stories, and hundreds of heroes and villains have come and gone in that time period. I understand that there will be characters that I'm not familiar with and that's okay. As long as they are explained adequately in the film I'm looking at at the moment, I can enjoy the movie and appreciate the way the character seems to work. There are two characters in this in this film, which comic book fans seem to be quite wound up about, Taskmaster and the Sentry. Both of them appear in this film but with vastly different story arcs. I can't begin to debate the merits of how the characters are used in comparison to the way they originated in the comic books, I have no knowledge in this area. I can say that I felt one of these characters was ill-used in this story and the other is being set up for more important plot lines in the future.

Florence Pugh continues to impress with her talents on the screen. She portrays a convincing badass with a serious demeanor who is conflicted over the direction of her life. In contrast, David Harbor, who plays her father the Red Guardian, is equally living a less than satisfied life, but his attitude toward it is completely different. His avuncular and upbeat personality provides the movie with some humor and light moments as the main characters face their existential nightmares. The film also features John Walker, who for a short period of time was the new Captain America. He is portrayed by Wyatt Russell, and his take on the character is funny while also being a little problematic. Of course the drama of the film stems from the fact that all of the characters are problematic.

The story combines the usual tropes of the MCU hero team-ups. Each misfit gets a brief introduction, they engage in a competition/fight among themselves, and then they learn who the real enemy is and have to decide if they are able to take on that individual. Does that sound like Guardians of the Galaxy or The Avengers? There's a reason for that, it's because these films with a group of Heroes follow very familiar storytelling points.

The combat scenes in this film are pretty solid. There's a fight in an underground vault that is decisively designed to eliminate the heroes. It's choreographed very carefully and the flying knives, speeding bullets, and Flying Kicks all last about the right amount of time. I never felt like anything in this movie was padding, although there are several sequences which seem to suggest the exact opposite.

A pivotal new character, Bob, starts off as a naive confused patient, but ends up a somewhat deranged and honest hero and villain. It's another part of the mental health theme of this movie. It may be pressing good taste a little bit to have a deranged meth addict in a chicken costume attacking people for laughs, but in the long run it is a sad commentary on the lives that some people lead, returning us to that theme of disappointment, despair, and depression.

I can't say that this was the best MCU film, or even a top tier episode. I can say I enjoyed it enough to go back for the Thursday night screening that we had originally planned on and repeat the experience for a second evening in a row. I was entertained by the film and satisfied that the keepers of the franchise are starting to right the boat. As usual there are mid credit and end credit sequences as part of the exit titles. One of them is just a final joke and the other is a tie-in to the future of the franchise. Both of them are worth sitting through the credits for. Oh, and we get an official redubbing of the film title.

*

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TCM Film Festival 2025 (Day 4)

It feels a little like sundowner syndrome when we arrive at the fourth day of the film festival. Everyone has had a wonderful time for 3 days but we all know that it's about to be over with, even though there are wonderful things still scheduled for the afternoon. Our fourth day at the film festival was really pretty simple, we had two films that we were going to see both of them were pretty long, and then we had the closing night film.

2001 A Space Odyssey

Amanda and I made the decision to split up for the first film of the day, she had never seen "Oklahoma" before and was anxious to catch it on the big screen. And as I've said in other posts, although I love my daughter she has disappointed me in her lack of appreciation for "2001 A Space Odyssey", that's the film I decided that I would go to see. I was especially interested in seeing 2001 again on the big screen, because the guest of the day was going to be the star of the film Keir Dullea. The festival programmers seem to be doing their best to get to important guests while they are still around. Mr Dullea, is maybe the 5th or 6th guest that I saw this weekend who is in their late 80s. All of us are due to leave this Mortal coil at some point, and I'm glad that so many of these guests chose to spend some time with us while they still could.

2001 on the big screen, at the Egyptian, is something I've done several times before. And once again seeing the movie in a theater with a rapt audience is thrilling. We were given the whole effect, including Overture, intermission, and exit music. They have also made sure to make these presentations authentic in another way, they closed the curtains and then open them again when it's time for the feature. To me, the sense of excitement as the curtains part and the credits begin to roll, is one of the things that makes me most love the movies. They should be an event, not just content.

The conversation with Keir Dullea, was quite interesting, including stories about how he was cast and about his working with Stanley Kubrick on the set. His wife accompanied him onto the stage to help keep him focused on particular questions. He was by no means senile, but he would wander off track occasionally or miss the meaning of the question and she assisted him quite ably without necessarily suggesting that there was anything wrong. Especially appreciated the prompt that she had at the end when she reminded him that he wanted to talk about a piece of dialogue that got cut from the film, but for which he had spent a great deal of time trying to memorize, and still has it in his head.

I did an audio recording several parts of the conversation, and I'm going to try to include them here.

Richard Kirkham · Keir Dullea at TCMFF 2025

"2001", along with "Jaws" is on my list of 10 favorite films of all time. So this is a pretty good weekend for me.

Apocalypse Now

When I met up with my daughter after her screening, we were queuing up to get numbers for this 1979 Francis Ford Coppola classic. She had been quite enamored of "Oklahoma", and I hate that I missed sitting through it with her, because I quite like the film. I really enjoyed her embrace of the songs and the story and the joy that she seemed to be having. I was a little worried that this next film would destroy some of the cheerfulness that surrounded the mornings experience for her. After all Apocalypse Now is not a happy film.

I'm not sure how she managed to get to her age without being exposed to this film more. She told me she's only seen a few clips and doesn't really know much about the movie. So that made our decision to see "Apocalypse Now", here at the film festival, really an appropriate one. The guest for this presentation was director Antoine Fuqua who has directed a ton of action films that I have loved over the last 20 years. He had nothing to do with the production of "Apocalypse Now", it just happens that it's his favorite film and inspired him to become a director and make movies that feature kind of grit and action that Coppola provided. His commentary on the film was mostly that of an enamored fan, which is not really a bad thing. It was certainly encouraging to hear his enthusiasm for the movie, as we tried to gird ourselves for the experience.

I mentioned that in the 2001 screening, the festival was trying to create an authentic experience included the ritual with the curtains. For this screening, the authenticity was enhanced by the distribution of a booklet, that contain the credits for the film. Back in 1979, the premier screening of this movie it Cannes, was done without any credits appearing on the screen, but rather in a Nifty little pocketbook with pictures. That item was reproduced and provided to all of us who attended this Sunday afternoon screening of a decidedly depressing War film.

There are variations of "Apocalypse Now" that have become quite popular in the last few years, but this presentation was the original theatrical cut. That's the only version of the film that I know. I've seen the film occasionally over the years, and I have bounced back and forth between disliking it and embracing it. Whenever I think of the distaste I might have had for the movie, it probably reflects the negativity that is such a huge part of the story. 

This time I was happy to embrace the film, and I was glad that Amanda was suitably impressed with it as well. Now if only I could get her to respond to 2001 the same way maybe I wouldn't feel like such a failure as a father.

Heat

The closing night film for the festival was Heat, in the TCL IMAX theater. We had originally planned on watching the silent version of Beau Jeste in the Egyptian Theater. When actor Al Pacino was added to the discussion of "Heat", we changed our minds and decided we could not miss out on the opportunity to hear one of the great actors of the 20th century talk about this movie.

The original guest was Michael Mann the director of the film, and Pacino joining him made the discussion feel a lot more complete. In fact even though there were questions, the situation felt more like a conversation with two old friends on the couch rather than an interview. Each of them remembered some things slightly differently, and they occasionally made the effort to correct a misstatement or a difference in memory.

Now I do have a confession to make, we chose not to stay for the screening of the film after the conversation. We had watched Heat last year and Amanda was not up for repeating it. It is a long film, and if we had stayed we wouldn't have gotten home until midnight at least. So we stayed for the conversation between Pacino and director Michael Mann, and then we made our way out of the theater is quietly as possible so that we can return to the Southern California house and my daughter and her husband are living in. We got to have dinner with them instead of sending down in the diner with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

TCM Film Festival 2025 (Day 3)

Earth vs. the Flying Saucers

Our third day of the TCM Film Festival started off with a science fiction classic from the 1950s featuring Special Effects by the great Ray Harryhausen. I don't think I've ever seen this film before "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers". The morning's presentation was introduced by Joe Dante a director that I've admired for almost 50 years. Just as a side note that behind him at the screening of the Bruce Willis film "Sunset" in the Cinerama Dome.

Earth versus the flying saucers is a straightforward fifties sci-fi film, which means that it features military types who are hysterical about contact with new species, and weapons that we have not encountered before which will require a sudden development of Technology that we haven't used before. Many times the aliens in these movies are standings for communism, the idea that a totalitarian race wants to dominate us and control our resources and lives sounds like it's a pretty straightforward interpretation of the Soviet Union, only with cool space suits.

I'm sure I've seen actor Hugh Marlow in something else but at the moment I can't remember what it would be. Many of the actors portraying generals looked quite familiar, I suspect they probably worked regularly in the 1950s playing military types. The highlight of these films is usually the special effects and in this particular case it's the flying saucers and the Damage they cause Washington DC. Ray Harryhausen he's always been one of my favorite producers, who's specialty is stop motion animation, that he did mostly on his own. The effects look really cool on the screen, although in this particular film they were a little repetitive until we got to the attack on DC.

Colossus: The Forbin Project

Our second film of the day was one that I was looking forward to from the moment I first saw the schedule. In the decade Plus that I have attended the TCM Film Festival, I've made sure to see the presentations from Craig Barron and Ben Burtt. These two gentlemen have extensive background in sound and special effects, receiving multiple Academy Awards, and having a clear knowledge of the history of their own disciplines. The very first film I saw at one of these festivals was my favorite, "The Adventures of Robin Hood" with Errol Flynn. Barron and Burtt were the presenters for that screening and they had such interesting detail and background history on the movie that I resolved never to miss an opportunity when they were speaking again.

The film they were working on this day, was "Colossus: The Forbin Project", from 1970. While not the most well-known science fiction film of its ilk, Colossus is a forerunner of some of the most prescient films of the last 50 years. James Cameron was clearly influenced by exposure to this movie because the whole concept of Skynet is stolen from this film. The premise of the film is simple, we have created an artificial intelligence to run our defense systems, and the worst things that can happen do.

I was a little surprised that this was the film that these two gentlemen were working on for the festival, because I didn't remember that there were extensive effect shots. Of course I forget sometimes that matte paintings and sound design are a big part of how a movie like this manage to impress. The opening shots of Dr Forbin, walking through the Colossus computer as it is being booted up, require some difficult matte paintings that were done by the great Albert Whitlock. The descriptions that the speakers provided impressively explained why we should take note of this subtle work.

I also found it quite interesting, that the sound of colossus's voice in the television interface that originated at the World's Fair in 1939, was classified during World War II. The sound technology was used for the direct communication line between Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Winston Churchill. It was a nice simulation of what their call would have sounded like using the encryption sound technology that was later used for this movie. Once again one of my favorite things at the TCM Film Festival was a presentation by Craig Barron and Ben Bert. As an added bonus the star of the film Eric Braeden made an appearance. He did a brief introduction before the movie, and then participated in a little Q&A

Brigadoon

The third film for the day had us returning to the Egyptian Theater for the first time since last year. Although I love the Chinese IMAX I have to say that the Egyptian is my favorite venue for the festival. When I lived in Southern California I was a member of the American Cinematique, who operated the Egyptian. It is since traded hands and is now a Netflix venue, and while that may not be something I think is great, they have done a fantastic job updating the theater while still maintaining it's historical ambience. Such ambience seemed particularly important for this film, a 1950s Musical that I have never seen before Brigadoon.

I'm a fan of musicals and of Gene Kelly, so it's a little surprising that I hadn't seen this for myself at some point in the past. I don't know that it has the best reputation in the world of musicals, after all I'm not sure there's a song in it that was a hit. The film however it does have a number of charms, and it's a good reminder of how the studio system of the golden age of Hollywood could produce a film on sound stages that made you feel like you were in Scotland. In case you are not aware Brigadoon is a village that is either cursed or blessed depending upon your point of view. It's residents appear to be living nearly forever, because the village is only active for a few days every hundred years. Of course when Gene Kelly and Van Johnson stumble upon the village, complications ensue, but so do some wonderful dance sequences. I was not aware that Van Johnson danced in any films, but he did a pretty credible job with one number in this movie.

The real dancers in the film however were represented at the screening today by two of their own, Barrie Chase and George Chakiris. Both of these actors/dancers are well into their 80s, and they occasionally scratch their heads trying to remember some details about the particular film. They certainly gave us some insight into the way that dancers in those days found jobs or auditioned. I got the definite impression that Barry Chase lost a few opportunities because she would not submit to Arthur Freed . The casting couch was alive and well in those days.

While most of the film looked pretty good there were some sequences that probably needed to be remastered. I was happy to catch up on this classic and enjoy the look of the film even if the story is a little slight, and inconsistent on its own world building. After all it's really a musical not a science fiction fantasy film interested in creating its own universe.

JAWS

When we left the theater after Brigadoon we immediately got a new cue card and got in line to get back into the Egyptian for the most important film of our at TCM. This year is the 50th anniversary of the greatest film of the second half of the 20th century. Jaws is influential, groundbreaking, and once again in my opinion the best film that Steven Spielberg has ever made.

I am not sure that there is another movie that I have seen in a theater as often as I have Jaws. It made me very nostalgic to be seeing it here at TCM in the Egyptian Theater, since at least a half dozen of my earlier screenings also took place at this iconic venue. Anybody reading this can find more than a dozen posts about the movie Jaws on this blog site. I'm not going to recap the story or the significance of the movie on this day. Instead, main thing I want to talk about is the guest Lorraine Gary, who played Ellen Brody in the film. 

She was married to Sid Steinberg, who at the time was the chief at Universal Studios and Steven Spielberg's mentor. This is the part that she will be remembered for, all of her other roles were primarily supporting TV characters. Frankly she's terrific in the movie, although she disappears from the film entirely in the third Act. Advanced age of 88 she had No Reservations about being honest concerning her co-workers. She was dismissive of Richard Dreyfuss, without giving any details of why she didn't care for him. She also expressed the opinion that Roy Scheider was it somewhat mean co-star, and she didn't have any warm memories of working with him. She did however confess to having a crush on Robert Shaw, which I find completely Charming and ironic given their parts in the film.

The print of the film that was screened for us came from the British Film Institute, and had been preserved since a 1981 presentation on the BBC. The color dyes in this print are probably as close to the original version of the film from 1975, as we are likely to ever see. The film looked magnificent. It was surprising when Ben Mankowitz ask for a show of hands of people who had never seen the movie, that there were dozens of hands in the air. Listening to the audience during the film I had no trouble believing that those people were being honest, because you could hear the intake of breath, the shots of surprise, and the Applause of delight for all those little things that make Jaws the quintessential Blockbuster in one of my favorite films.

Blade Runner

We repeated the process at the end of this film walking out of the theater getting in line immediately to get a new cue card to go back in and see our final film for the evening. Although it was not a financial success in 1982 when it was first released, Blade Runner has been a critical success and a cult favorite for more than 40 years. 

One of the first Criterion Collection laserdiscs that I purchased was Blade Runner, back in the 1990s. That version does not include the director's cut in the Final Cut, but there is discussion of some of the things that would later be included in revised editions of the film. The version we saw appears to have been the Final Cut, so there is no narration in the ending is slightly different, although to be honest we only stayed through the first hour of the film. As I've already mentioned we were staying at the house in Glendora so we had a 45 minute ride home, if we stayed for the whole film we would not have been in bed until 1: 30, and we needed to get up at 5: 30 to make Sunday.

The special guests for this film was the female co-star Sean Young, who was only 19 when the film was made and who was making her debut as a film actress with this movie. Miss Young has always been known as an outspoken and opinionated actress and nothing has changed even if she is aged the way I have. She spoke about working with Harrison Ford, the rigors of the makeup chair, and generally working in Hollywood. Her talk was not limited to Blade Runner though, as she made brief comments about several films and actors that she had worked with. She seemed fond of the late Gene Hackman when she worked with in no way out, but never seem to get very close to Kevin Costner who was her leading man. She did say that Blade Runner was the favorite film that she made, but the bigger reaction from the audience was to her second favorite film which was Ace Ventura.

Watching Blade Runner at home on Blu-ray, streaming, or even my beloved LaserDisc, cannot do it justice. Seeing it on the big screen and listening to the score and the sound design of the film in the theater like the Egyptian is one of those things that everybody should experience. We only stayed through the scene where James Hong meets his demise, but I can tell you everything up to that point looked and sounded spectacular on the big screen.  

At one time it had been my hope to make a couple of the midnight movies, and "Wild at Heart" would have been another film at the Egyptian had we not been so tired. So we ended our day with the fun talk from Sean Young and the brilliant vision of Ridley Scott.

TCM Film Festival 2025 (Day 2)

Thunderball

For me personally I'm not sure the Day Two of the film festival could have started off any better. The first movie we were scheduled to see was a James Bond film, celebrating it's 60th anniversary. It's hard to believe that the James Bond films are almost as old as I am. I've been a lifelong fan of 007 and is a child of the 60s it's easy for me to be nostalgic for one of the most significant cultural films of that decade. "Thunderball' was a commercial earthquake that signaled the significance of action films, spy films, and general popular culture.

The 4th of the 007 films, "Thunderball" did everything bigger and more spectacularly than any film up to that time. The history of the film's origin is well known, Fleming developed the original story with a couple of other writers for a TV series that never went anywhere. Authorship claims were resolved by agreeing to allow one of the claimants a producer credit on this film. Regardless of what happened behind the scenes what happens on the screen is over the top, beginning with the use of a jetpack to escape from the bad guys in the pre-title sequence. The slogan for the film was "He3re Comes the Biggest Bond of All.". 

Maybe the most thrilling moment I felt at the whole festival was when the titles for "Thunderball" came up and we got those great Maurice Binder titles with Tom Jones belting out the song on the big screen. This is a restoration of the film, and frankly I thought it looked great before. This is the movie where all of the tropes from Austin Powers originated. There are sharks however,  they don't have any lasers on them. The spectacular underwater battle that takes place at the climax of the film still could use a little trimming, but it didn't seem nearly as long to me today as it has in the past. Probably because I'm watching it on the big screen.

The guest for this morning's presentation was actress Luciana Paluzzi, who played the SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe. She was 27 when the film was made which makes her 87 today. She still looks terrific and she was sharp as a tack with a great sense of humor. She talked about her long friendship with director Terrence Young, who made three of the first four James Bond films. In fact director Young gave her away at her wedding to her husband to whom she is still married. It was fun to listen to her share stories of being on the set with Sean Connery, and shooting the various scenes that she was in. I'm glad we got this opportunity well we still have some surviving members of the cast to talk about the film. Thank you TCM.

Because of the length of the film, and the fact that the talk took place after the movie, we were too late to queue up for either the films that we were planning on filling in the rest of our morning with. So we missed babe and The Time Machine. We did take a little break over in the lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel, before making our way back to the big house for "The Fabulous Baker Boys".

The Fabulous Baker Boys 

Michelle Pfeiffer was the guest for this presentation, and moments before the movie and the discussion she had participated in the traditional handprint and footprint in concrete in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater. I hadn't seen this film since it came out in 1989, but I remember being impressed with it and thinking it deserved some of the accolades that it received. Most especially Miss Pfeiffer's performance being nominated by the Academy. I do remember it was a bit of a surprise that she didn't win.

The story is a small one, focusing on the relationship between two brothers who have a piano lounge act that is moderately successful. The older brother played by actor Beau Bridges, is engaged and cheerful during their performances, and he takes the lead in trying to keep their act financially lucrative. The younger brother is played by Jeff Bridges, his real life brother, a piece of terrific casting. Jeff Bridges character is the more talented musician, who is resentful of his occupation and the playlist which the brothers usually perform. When they run into trouble keeping the act booked, they decide to hire a girl singer to join the show, enter Michelle Pfeiffer who plays Susie Diamond, an escort with a nice voice, who wants to make the transition legitimate performances.

There are basically two love stories in the film, the one between the brothers which is strained by sibling rivalry, and different views of what they ought to be doing. And of course the younger brother who is always been a philanderer begins a romantic relationship with Susie, which we can see is not going to end well for either of them. Susie Diamond is a hard case, but her heart is not as buried in concrete as is the younger Baker brother. All three leads are excellent, and they make the drama of the film feel quite real.

It is not a news flash to anyone, but Michelle Pfeiffer is a stunningly beautiful woman. She is the same
age I am and clearly looks a hell of a lot better than I do. She was friendly and Charming, and she tried to answer the questions what's that Ben Mankiewicz tossed at her.  Sometimes the questions were a little awkward, and her answers would end up being more ambiguous than you might expect, but she was doing her best. This was also the first time I've noticed in the decade that I've been attending the festival, that the Stars security team was present on the sides of the platform where the guests in the host were seated. I'm sure security has been there for many presentations, but miss Pfeiffer security team had one individual standing on each side of the platform. That was a little surprising but completely understandable.

Misery

Our third film of the day, was also at the TCL IMAX theater, generally known as Grauman's Chinese, and talk about a contrast in the way the actors are portrayed in the two movies, Michelle Pfeiffer is luminous beauty is now contrasted to the harsh persona and visage of Kathy Bates in "Misery". "Misery" is a Stephen King story translated to the screen by Rob Reiner, who did the same thing for another king story in the film "Stand By Me". This is a drama that is actually a horror movie, and when you see how it plays out I don't think there's any doubt that it is a Fright Fest.

Kathy Bates won the Academy Award in 1990 as the character Annie Wilkes, a deranged fan of the romance novels that feature a character named misery. Author of those books from a car accident in the blizzard, and cares for him in her home. But of course talking about going from the frying pan Into the Fire, the danger to the author seems to get greater and greater the longer he stays in her care. For the most part the film features two actors, the aforementioned Kathy Bates, but also the great James Caan, who plays the injured author. It takes nothing away from Kathy Bates performance to point out that Caan is terrific in the more physical performance. His character does not have the emotional range that Bates did, but he has to do a lot more torturous crawling, climbing, and sweating. The two of them together were really good.

I'll briefly mention the late Richard Farnsworth also, who plays the local sheriff, trying to figure out what happened to the missing author. Farnsworth was always a welcome presence in movies, and when I mentioned to my daughter that he was in a G-rated film from David Lynch she practically fell out of her chair.

The screening emphasizes for me once again how important the theatrical experience is. The theater full of people responded to the events taking place on screen with screams, laughs, and nervous tittering at times. You could hear that the audience was reacting to the movie exactly how the storytellers had intended. And it must have been very gratifying to the two guests to hear the way the audience responded to their work.

The guests for this film were the director Rob Reiner and the lead actress herself Kathy Bates. They talked about the process of rehearsing the picture, and they noted that James Caan had a different style of acting then Bates did. Rainer talked about how he had tried to manage their different styles in the film and use that as a way to reflect the characters that the two were playing. There were a few tidbits of information that came out about the screenplay that I thought were particularly interesting. It was written by the great William Goldman, the Reiner added several pieces to the film as they went along, including the dinner sequence which includes a great suspense sequence, and a twist that had the audience moaning with frustration.

The American President

Our fourth feature of the day, was also playing in the main house, so after leaving the theater, queuing up to wait for the next screening, we return to exactly the same position we were in for the previous two films to watch "The American President". This is a film that was a precursor to the television series The West Wing, one of our favorites. The film was written by Aaron Sorkin, and once again it was directed by Rob Reiner. Frankly Reiner had a run from 1985 to 1995 that is pretty amazing in terms of quality. He made the following films: "The Sure Thing", "Stand By Me", "The Princess Bride", "A Few Good Men", and "The American President". That's a murderer's row of great films from that decade.

We've seen the film dozens of times, it has been a go-to in the house ever since it came out. The story of widowed president who attempts to start dating again while a resident in the White House. There are of course a lot of political machinations, and the hysteria over guns and climate change is exactly the same 30 years ago as it is today. Regardless of whether those issues matter, the story is really about how personalities influence the political process. Everybody is faced with some ethical dilemmas in the story, but of course the good guys get the best speeches, thanks to Aaron Sorkin.

Screenwriter Sorkin and director Reiner where the guests for the presentation, and they talked about the Genesis of the film, and the way it transformed itself to some degree. Originally scheduled to Star Robert Redford, and be merely about the romance and comedy of a president trying to date, the film turned into something a little more weighty and probably better balanced when Sorkin and Reiner decided to inject some political elements to the film. Redford wasn't interested in doing a political film, he'd already done that. So enter Michael Douglas and the rest is as they say history.

Ambitiously we had hoped to see Rocky Horror at a midnight screening, but are better judgment sent us home after this film and we didn't attempt to do the time warp late into the evening. I would have enjoyed seeing Barry Bostwick is the guest, but after hearing that the screening went off half an hour late I was very grateful that we made the decision to stop at four films for the day.

During the break we went over to the TCM Lounge and found this on display. 

TCM Film Festival 2025 (Day 1)

 

The first day of the TCM Film Festival varies depending upon what kind of pass you have purchased. We have gone for the Essentials pass for the past several years because that gives us access to the opening night film which this year was The Empire Strikes Back, celebrating the 45th anniversary of its release. 

We get a chance to walk the red carpet, have some free popcorn and soda, and sitting an audience for an introductory talk with the legendary George Lucas. Ben Mankiewicz did the best you could to draw the often reserved Lucas into a coherent conversation, but he frequently struggled because Lucas becomes focused on the way he wants to tell his story, and often seems unaware of the audience that's listening. Eventually Lucas gets to the point of Mankowitz's question, but it was a very roundabout approach.

Before the conversation began however, I had one of the many great experiences I look forward to each year when TCM comes around. One of the LAMBs that appear on the LAMBcast on a regular basis, was attending the opening night presentation as a media guest with his friend journalist Scott Mendelson. Aaron Neuwirth is one of the delightful regulars on the podcast, and I had hoped to entice him to attend the with the screening of Mothra that took place after the Empire Strikes Back premiere. He wasn't planning on doing that but on the last minute, he was able to come to the Empire screening, and we connected briefly in the audience sharing a handshake and some jokes, and connecting in the real world not simply in the virtual.

The movie that was screened was in fact one of the revised Editions that Lucas put out with some additional visual elements. Fortunately, of the three original films that got the Lucas revisionism, Empire is the one that suffers the least from his intervention. One or two additional shots clarify a couple of early scenes, and added crowds and vehicle shots make the sequences on bespin a little more cinematic. There is nothing is egregious as editing Han Solo to the point where he shoots only after being shot at, so I didn't object to this choice of version for the show. Many have said, and I would be hard pressed to disagree, that Empire is the best of the Star Wars films.

My own history with Empire Strikes Back is a little sweet and sour. The sweet consists of the memory I have of seeing the film with my fiancé, and my best friend, the night before his wedding. I don't think his bride was very happy with him the next day because our screening kept us out until after midnight in June of 1980. The sour consists of the memory I have of my mentor Lee Garrison, who had gone to a screening of the film nearly a month earlier then it's opening at Caltech where he was the debate coach at the time. He wouldn't tell us anything about the film, trying not to spoil it for us, and saying only that it would be something that we would really enjoy. Boy he was sure right, the problem is I never got to talk about it with him after we saw it because he was killed in a car accident heading back to Texas just a week after this screening. Still I considered a good memory of my dear friend.

I mentioned that we were talking about seeing a screening of Mothra immediately after this, but we had flown into town the day before, and with the time change our sleep cycle was a little screwed up, and I didn't good idea to stay until after midnight on the first night of the festival, when we were scheduled to watch films early the next day. We were not staying in Hollywood this year, but rather at my home in Glendora, which meant about an hour commute both ways. That influence our decision on several other films in the next couple of days as well.

So for day one of the festival, it was just the red carpet and the screening of Empire with that conversation with George Lucas and the chance to meet Aaron Neuwirth. I consider that a very successful first day.